EA and Typed defense back and forth

I've been looking at the typed defense offered by EA and have seriously been having a hard time justifying some of it's basic principles. EA got a buff not so long ago (about a few issues back), that took it out of the seriously dead last and lagging by a mile performance and put it up to dead last but no longer by a mile performance. It is a playable, but noticeably inferior defense set, due to the fact that it uses typed defense rather than positional defense, and combines it with resistances that are to resistance as Gene Simmons is to machismo.

Typed defense as you know, is mostly found on 'hybrid' sets to complement the existing toys of the secondary. WP gets it, Invuln gets it and SA gets it. All those sets of course get lower typed defense than EA (easily fixed with IOs), lack def debuff resistance and have some serious other things to make them live and let smash.

The major problem with EA and it's typed defense when compared to positional defense offered in Def sets like SR and SD, seems to be the huge toxic and somewhat fixable psi hole in the defense. To be fair, EA is getting some toxic protection in the form of some absolutely pitiful resistance (~14%) which will allow you to think "oh crap" a few seconds before the faceplant animation begins. You can of course somewhat patch up the psi defense hole by using 60% of your slots and entirely foregoing any other plans you had with them such as getting perma hasten.

If you don't mind playing a character that has all the vulnerabilities of positional defense sets, AND gets shaky knees against psi and toxic, then you're in luck, you can build toons that are just as good as positional defense characters, as long as you are willing to make a faceplant ballet against clockwork, carnies, toxic tarantulas, snakes, and many many more baddies which normally bear a neon "free kill" sign to positional defense characters.

So why such a vulnerability when compared to other similar defense sets? Do we really get something that makes up for this? The end recovery, nice, but blue bar protection < green bar protection. Death is the ultimate end drain after all. We also get some resistances that are a little worse than what SD gets, a nice stealth toy which ironically you may want to use a lot to avoid the plethora of things that could rip you a new EA.

Positional Defense has NO weakness that is NOT also a weakness for typed defense. Typed defense just has more weaknesses on top of the inherent defense weaknesses. Why the additional weakness? It's not like EA gets something that is so much better than LR or scaling resistance of SR or the many toys of SD (+HP, Shield charge, +DMG, better resistances).

Now one could step in and say Positional defense is too strong. I have to disagree, positional defense is under performing until bumped up to 35% to softcap where it becomes great and as good as an equally IOd out resistance/hybrid secondary. Plus we just got a second Positional defense set that seems to perform at least as well as if not better than the existing SR.

I want to play EA, I seriously do. But right now everything else is a better choice. I'm not trying to insult or madden the EA users out there. I like my EA toons, they look purty. But man do I under perform by miles.... uh slightly less than a mile.

So what could be a solution? The purpose of the thread. Do you identify with the basic conundrum above, or do you have another view on the subject, something I'm overlooking and that might allow me to enjoy EA once again without a second "castling" of the set?

I'd imagine there are two options available to EA. The simplest, most straightforward solution would be getting rid of the psi/toxic def holes (don't know how easy it is to implement a toxic defense so 'simplest' might be a massive overstatement code wise).

The other way, is to go the WP/SD way and add +HP and some higher Psi/Toxic resistance. We can lower our S/L resistance to make up for that bump, we got the defense for it.

What differentiates it form the other defense sets? Well not survivability for one. You'd have to go an entirely different IO route than positional defense and all three sets would have a different bad of toys.

The stealth and end recovery of EA are very nice toys to have. After all, there are only a few things that a solid secondary look at to give it some sexyness factor:
recharge,
regen,
recovery,
+HP,
drain/-recov resist,
slow resist,
+damage

SR has the recharge and slow resist covered. SD has the +HP, +Dmg portion covered. Why not let EA focus on the +end / drain resist and something similar to the -end found in the new ElA toy? Regen would be nice, but seeing how amazingly awesomest of superness incarnate regen is on defense sets, it would be too much.

This would make EA the ElA of defense sets, somewhat makes sense since the two sets are so similar in original design. Drain resist, is probably, not so great as the other toys given to SR and SD since well you can evade 90% of the draining attacks by being defense based anyway, but it's better than what we have now.

Any ideas? Thoughts? Flames? *prepares burn lotion* and sorry for the wall o text.

SR and SD don't get a self-heal.

True, but the heal is so sub par that I've actually forgotten about it. Bumping the heal may be another option akin to giving the set some crutches.

But more importantly, do you think EA in it's current form is "OK" or would you think it would benefit a performance bump by tweaking the existing powers slightly and not actually changing some foundation stones like I had posted?

You also go on about typed defense being weak and positional defense being good but you don't really say how or why....and I'm talking about typed defense, not EA.

Also, you forget Ice Armor, which is also a typed defense set.

IMO, there is nothing inherently inferior about typed defense, fundamentally. It does the exact same thing positional defense does: a percentage chance to negate applicable attacks.

In gameplay, I feel the same. Typed defense does what it advertises.

Now if you want to *fix* typed defense, then fix the problem. The problem I've noticed when examining attacks when I get hit is that it doesn't seem some attacks are completely or properly typed. I think I checked a goldbricker sonic attack and while it does smashing and energy damage, I think it was only typed ranged. There is no reason it shouldn't be typed as ranged/smashing/energy. And that goes for any attack that directly does their damage type.

Exceptions would be something like Blazing Arrow which should only be ranged/lethal because it delivers the fire 'on' the arrow (and any other similar attacks).

For toxic, that's only an issue for pure toxic attacks and there aren't many of those.

And psionic blasts should not have positions. At least not the ones that are attacking your mind (i.e. fly at the character and hit them in the head, leaving a glowing aura around their head). Seriously, how does your brain dodge anything? It doesn't have legs to hop out of your skull and take cover behind an aluminum crate or something.

Yes, I've never played a tanker so I have zero experience with ice armor. I cannot comment.

The reason typed defense is at a disadvantage in general is very simple, there is no toxic typed defense. This is akin to having a fourth positional defense against which you have zero mitigation. No matter how rare it is, it exists and there is no counterpart for this in positional defense.

Mis-typed or missing labels on attacks are anoyying indeed and should be fixed, but that is a little outside of what I was trying to focus on.

Dont get me wrong, typed defense works well on top of existing hybrid sets like WP, Invuln and SA. However if it is the primary mitigation like in EA, having a hole in the damage type to which you are not patching it up via resistance, regen or mitigation is what makes EA lag behind other def based sets. Hence why the post is primarily about EA and it's use of typed defense rather than typed defense in general.

The second reson EA lags is the psi hole which takes a whole lot of investment to patch up. Unlike any of the other Def sets, where you don't have to dedicate your enitre build to make up for a weakness.

Sorry if that was not clear.

EA suffers from the same curse as all defense based sets. It practically doesn't function until level 22 and SOs.

EA also shares with SR another issue: It can be softcapped due to the preponderance of +def in setIOs and pool powers.

Does it have equivalence with SR in the amount of defense it provides? Of course not. But it does come with static dam-res that exists at all times rather than turning on at 60% health, a self heal that when fully slotted and saturated is a 60% heal every 30 seconds, and has massive endurance tools allowing you to more easily pay for all the extra pools you take to overcome its weaknesses.

So... do I think it needs any further buffs? Nope. We just have to accept that defense blows until 22, SOs, kinda sucks until you add a steadfast unique, CJ and weave, and fails more than it should until you're sitting at the softcap.

There actually is a strength to typed defences.

It might be worth noting that /WP actually makes good use of this strength and that it does so in a way that /EA can also do, albeit somewhat less well.

The strength that multityped attacks can be defended against in ways that are unavailable to other types of protection.

A smashing/energy attack against a WP character will first be defended against by that set's significant energy defence which will effectively protect the character from the smashing portion of the attack as well as the energy portion of the attack. Ditto fire/lethal, neg/smashing etc.

Only pure smashing and lethal attacks against a WP character will attack that sets more minimal s/l defence. Sure there are a significant number of these, but it's hardly all of them. WP, of course, also gets it's significant s/l resistances to shore it'self up against these attacks, it gets it's scaling regen, and, if all else fails, it's got those extra HP too.

Basically, WP is a lot stronger against a significant share of SL damage than it's base stats would suggest, just due to the overlap.

EA is less able to use this, but some builds can get some benefit, or at least they can for part of the character's career. Fire/cold and Energy def on base EA builds, and on many IO'd builds, are likely to be higher than straight SL def. This is still going to help out with your S/L survival against those mixed attacks. OK you don't have those resistances to fall back on, you don't have those extra HP (out of overload) and your heal is generally not the equal of RTTC, but you can't get away from the fact that until you actually hit the softcap for s/l, an EA brute is probably going to be better protected from an energy/smashing attack than and equivalent positional set (if there actually was such a thing) would be protected from a melee attack.

Once you hit the softcap this doesn't mean much, but between levels 28 and 38 or so, when you're not at the cap for SL, but when you might be for energy/cold/fire, it'll make a difference.

Does this compensate for the toxic Hole? there's very little pure toxic out there, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say why not?

Does it compensate for the psi hole? I think the most honest answer is simply a no, not in my experience. There's way too much pure psi out there, especially red side. Worse, there are some very nasty pure psi def(all) debuffs, which are going to hit, and then they're going to tear the rest of your protection to flinders. There are also some dammed nasty pure negative attacks and debuffs that aren't exactly easy for EA to deal with either.

Now, EA isn't without other strengths, IOs are game changers, and late game EA is plenty strong, but in the discussion about how to buff EA in the early game (something I still think it needs) the possibility of punching energy def through the roof shouldn't be omitted. It'd save you from a lot more attacks than you'd think, and it would do so using the one strength typed defences have over their positional counterparts.

I went ahead and re did the numbers, you've got a very good point BillZ. It is overall better to slot for recharge and +Heal to have the heal up and heal as much as possible rather than try to close the psionic def gap on EA. The overall global recharge benefits you much more and you would survive a lot better on average than closing the psi gap but having low neg energy def and toxic hole.

Is mids correct in that you only have 57% def debuff resistance?

Dunno about the DDR. My claws/ea is only 30, I think. SR is still king on that front. SD can get close but you HAVE to double stack active defense to get it there.

The whole defense thing is smack back in my face right now because I also cranked up a claws/sr brute. Belle Z Bubbette. Cloning farkup. I'd honestly forgotten just how bad SR is before SOs. It's freaking painful. And that's WITH a lvl 10 steadfast unique slotted into tough at lvl 14.

My experience of EA is as a stalker, but I think the observations are valid, and I have several 50 ice tanks so know typed defence fairly well.

I didn't have much of a problem with EA, but there are some missions on which you are just horrible if you want to take a substantial part of the aggro for a large group. My toon is elec/EA and end drain was a substantial part of the mitigation in places.

You can softcap EA against smashing, lethal, energy fire and cold fairly easily and at lower levels than some of the other sets. I was softcapped to most things by the late 30s, and you can slot a lot of what you need in the early 30s (eradications and kinetic combats).

Ice tanks suffer similar problems, their psi/toxic mitigation is an aura that debuffs incoming damage 14% (but that adjusts for relative level so usually less) and some toxic resist in their dull pain clone. I've found them to be one of the most survivable tank types with the exception of a few missions. Antimatter's blue clocks are a nightmare as a tank with negligible resists and -100 defence doesn't survive too well on big teams.

My stalker was able to cover the holes for alphas with shadow meld, unfortunately not available to brutes.

Yeah Defense based sets, due to their binary nature, are late bloomers and have a painful pre 30 life. I've grown to take that as a given for the tradeoff. Once properly IOd, they shine pretty brightly (or not so brightly for EA). As BillZ pointed it out, it seems that at least for EA, it is better to leave it's holes as they are and try to up the recharge on the heal to make up for the incoming damage in those categories.

I think what Spiritchaser said, which is exactly what happens with the Animater Robots, is the raw deal for EA: def debuffing psi attacks will tear EA apart and no amount of self healing in the world will save you after that point of no return.

This is of course on top of the regular defense sets' can opener, tohit buffs.

What I find a pity is that there is no circumstance ever, in which EA will come on top when compared to the other def based secondaries, both SR and SD will do everything EA does and then some, unless of course you count stealthing to the end of the mission. =)

I do have to admit that I am being very harsh on EA as I usually tend to push the envelope out the ears of the brutes I play with. And EA so far, has been riding the short bus. To be fair, I have not yet thrown purples at it yet. I dont have THAT much inf to burn.

It is very refreshing to see that a lot of good points are popping up which I had never thought of.

Overload is an unbelievable skill for EA. It can easily HP cap a brute with accolades and/or IO set bonuses. It also has just an endurance/recovery crash, which can be negated by having access to Conserve Power and Energy Drain. EA is the only set in the game that can basically negate the penalty of its tier 9 crash. With a bit of practice and timing for skilled players, the endurance crash will never take place.

The toxic gap isn't that large in my experience. Most toxic attacks in this game are attached to a lethal component. In the case of Arachnos, they are also attached to energy. This means that while my ELA and EA brutes both technically have a gaping hole to toxic, my EA toon has a much easier time of it against Toxic Tarantulas and Arachnoids.

The psi hole can be rough, but I always target the most powerful psi damage dealer first thanks to Energy Cloak-- often killing the enemy before any other agro comes my way.

I think when EA gets proliferated, the set is set up for a similar buff that Elec Armor got. Unless they will allow Tankers/Scrappers 2 conserve powers, they'll probably change EA's conserve power to something else. I previously suggested a power called Overclock that provides the same endurance discount as Energize but comes attached with +res to psionic and either smashing/lethal or energy/neg.

Also, why does EA have a mez protection toggle that does nothing but protect against mez? You can't slot it for anything but endurance.

For entropy shield, we did fight for adding psionic defense and allowing the defense debuff resistance to be enhanceable. Unfortunately, we don't get a change for this power.

I guess the hope right now is proliferation, as this will be the second chance that energy aura will be looked at.

Actually... every power in both Controller and Dominator Mind Control lack a positional component.

It gets very ugly when facing carnie and arachnos bosses.

If the attributes of mob attacks are the same as players, then only the Blind from Master Illusionist is psionic without a positional attribute. The attacks of Master Illusionist are from Illusion Control. For Ring Mistress and Dark Ring Mistress, their attacks are from psychic blast, which have both psionic and positional attributes. I'm not sure about the Mask of Vitiation.

For Arachnos, the widows and tarantulas use psychic blasts, so their attacks should have a positional attributes.

It is true that mind control attacks don't have a positional attribute, but Carnies and Arachnos don't seem to use it.

I fail to see how DRMs and MIs tear through my softcapped SR as easily as they do if their attacks had a positional component.

On the other hand.... as they are +4 bosses when I'm fighting them, they would never have less than a 9.1% chance to hit me. 10.1% chance with spectral wounds.

Still... that's not sitting in my perception zone properly at all. The only defense debuff I'm seeing is coming from carnies is the Mask of Vitiation and Harlequin Fencers, but they both have to hit to get it to land and SR's 95% defense debuff is going to laugh that off.

I'll run one again tonight and check the combat logs.

I found the issue. It's the damn pets. And blind. An subdue?

Subdue is type ranged/psi, yet DRM had a 50% chance to hit me with it when there's no defense debuff on me?

Blind stacks up.

But it's the pets with their constant 41.something% chance to hit all the time.
Dark Servant with tenebrous tentacles: 41.74
Dark Servant with twilight grasp: 41.82
Phantasm Power Bolt: 41.82
Seneshal spit fire, if it lands, calls up burn which also has a 41% chance with each tick.

What's going on there?